


Momentum

by bonsoirkitty



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Drama, M/M, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-31
Updated: 2012-06-11
Packaged: 2017-11-06 10:33:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/417871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonsoirkitty/pseuds/bonsoirkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki appears in Tony's room one night and starts a chain of events that may or may not mean Tony falls for the one person he probably isn't meant to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from Momentum by The Hush Sound which is actually a pretty fitting song for this story overall.  
> Okay, so this is my first frostiron, my first sex scene and my first story on here. So I hope it's okay!

The first time it happened, the Avengers had just returned from battle and Tony was exhausted. Running on the remaining adrenaline alone, he’d headed upstairs to the relative peace of his room, to have a drink and crawl into bed, as he so often did after a particularly gruelling fight.  
  
However, what he didn’t expect to find is Loki waiting for him, still clad in his leather armour, although that damn helmet is nowhere in sight. Before Tony can protest or even ask what he is doing there, Loki pounces - locking their lips in a furious kiss. Tony’s mind is going haywire, running every possible scenario in which this could happen, and even asking himself if he’d missed something. As Loki works his tongue inside Tony’s mouth, he finds that he doesn’t actually care what’s going on and he decides to enjoy it while he can.  
  
Returning the kiss as best as he can, fighting Loki for dominance, he flinches as his back hits the wall and he has enough presence of mind to lock the door before they find themselves in a rather embarrassing predicament. Tony pulls away from the demanding lips just long enough to tangle his fingers in that soft, raven hair and tug, hard. Loki groans, low in his throat, as Tony attacks the pale skin of his throat with lips and teeth and none of that finesse he was renowned for in bed. But dammit Loki had appeared with no warning and he tastes cold like ice and if he enjoys the downright sinful noises that escape from the god – well, no one needs to know.  
  
Loki growls, planting his hands on Tony’s shoulders, shoving, and as Tony’s head hits the wall with a dull _thud_ , Loki reclaims the shorter man’s lips in a kiss that is all teeth and underlying _anger_ that is almost fading into the lust that Tony had felt ever since that day in the tower – ever since those impossibly long fingers had wrapped around his neck and hurled him through the window.  
  
Tony’s hands scramble across the armour-clad expanse of Loki’s chest – desperately seeking for a zip, a clasp, anything to feel bare skin underneath calloused fingers. He feels Loki smirk against his lips, before sensing a vague gesture being made and suddenly both of their clothes are gone and wonderfully cool skin is exposed to Tony’s wandering hands.  
  
Pulling away from the kiss – after all, air is somewhat of a necessity – Tony pushes Loki back until he falls onto the grey silk sheets of Tony’s bed. He scrambles backwards, giving Tony room to straddle his hips and hover above the other man. Pausing, Tony admires the god laid out underneath him – the expanse of pale skin wrapped around a subtly muscular frame and the fan of the dark eyelashes over the angular jut of his cheekbones and the way his hair spread out on the pillow like a dark halo. Tony just has to laugh at the irony of that, but the chuckle catches in his throat as Loki’s eyes snap open – green pinning brown with a look that contains an unidentifiable spark and a deep, gnawing _hunger_ that makes Tony nervous at the same time as turning him on even more.  
  
A shiver runs down his spine when kiss-swollen lips tell Tony, ‘When you are quite done staring at me, Stark, I’d rather like you to fuck me.’ The hoarse, lust-ravaged voice combined with the explicit statement and the way that accent curls around ‘fuck’ has Tony nodding and reaching over to dig in a bedside drawer for the bottle of lube.  
  
Throwing it onto the bed beside Loki, Tony reaches down to join their lips again, briefly, and then begins a path across his jaw and down his neck, along his collar bone and down, stopping to suck on one nipple, while playing with the other one with calloused fingers, savouring the noises Loki makes as Tony gently bites down before soothing the area with his tongue. Tony carries on his journey downward, sucking marks into intolerably pale skin that just begs to be marred with bruises and the kind of possessive marks Tony likes to make. Tony marvels at the way that biting down, hard, on Loki’s inner thigh makes the god arch his back in a desperate attempt to gain friction on his aching cock. Tony grabs the lube and covers his fingers, tracing the vein up Loki’s cock with his tongue as he slips the first finger inside.  
  
Loki is almost whimpering now, and he looks so incredibly vulnerable that Tony couldn’t help but stop and wonder why this is happening – why Loki randomly appeared in his room, what path led him here. Then Loki looks at him and makes an impatient noise and Tony focuses on the task at hand again, adding a second finger and thrusting them, opening Loki’s body. A third finger slips easily inside and Loki is moaning now, a near silent litany of ‘fuck’ and ‘Stark’ and Tony is starting to feel overwhelmed. Removing his fingers, he covers his own length with lube, hissing at the contact on his impossibly hard and until now abandoned cock.  
  
Tony settles between Loki’s legs, hitching one up and onto his shoulder as Loki wraps the other one around his waist and pushes himself up, opening up for Tony, and watching the god below him so eager is incredibly hot to Tony and he pauses, mesmerised, before pushing in slowly. He doesn’t doubt that Loki could take it quickly, but Tony wanted to savour the moment, the image of his cock slowly entering this exceptionally powerful god and when he is fully seated, he leans forward to whisper into Loki’s ear.  
  
‘How do you want it? Tell me.’ After all, Tony figures, Loki is the one that came to him, so in theory he probably needs _something_. Loki whimpers again, at a volume that normally would be impossible to hear, but here, in the heavy silence between them, it fills Tony’s ears and adds to the heat that is already pooling at the base of his spine.  
  
‘I need you to shut up and get on with it – although hard would be preferable.’ There are still echoes of the usual demanding Loki that Tony and his team have to fight, but there is something there, underneath the words, that Tony can’t quite identify, but he can relate to. He lets his head fall onto Loki’s shoulder, and with a muttered ‘fuck’, he starts moving, gripping onto Loki’s hips hard enough to bruise. Loki wraps one hand around the metalwork of the headboard, the other coming to rest on Tony’s shoulder, digging his nails in hard enough to draw blood.  
  
The noise of skin on skin is permeated with hitched breathing, gasps and muttered curses. Tony feels the heat building and building. Knowing he won’t last much longer, he wraps one hand around Loki’s cock, jerking him off fast and rough. He leans down, kissing Loki thoroughly, wondering at the taste of ice and magic and _life_ that is so utterly Loki before the god is coming, back arching up in a perfect curve that has his chest rubbing against Tony as come splashes onto their stomachs. It doesn’t take long for Tony to follow him over the edge, Loki’s insides clenching around him as he thrusts through his orgasm.  
  
Tony’s arm is shaking, fighting to support his weight as he pulls out and collapses onto the bed next to Loki, thoroughly sated and completely exhausted – any adrenaline from the fight having worn off. Tony turns his head just slightly to look at the man lying next to him, eyes closed and breathing heavily.  
  
‘Can I ask what that was about?’  
  
Loki rolls his head to the side, opening his eyes to look at Tony. ‘No.’ He answers stretching in a strikingly feline manner, wincing as he sits up. Before Tony can say another word, he’s gone.  
  
‘Not even a thank you.’ Tony murmurs. He calls for Jarvis to turn the lights off, and rolls over, curling up in the heat Loki left behind and falling asleep faster than he can remember ever having done so before.  
  
\--------------------------  
  
When Tony wakes up the next morning, it takes him a while to remember that he’d had a god in his bed the night before. He asks Jarvis if it really happened, and he simply receives a sarcastic affirmative. Tony crawls out of bed, pours himself a scotch, and returns, sitting cross legged under the sheets as he considers the night before.  
  
It’d been Loki that the team had been fighting, before he’d disappeared and assuming they’d won, the team had returned to the house and Tony had been accosted by Loki. He desperately tries to recall every detail, every little thing that may have given him some idea of why Loki had appeared like that. The only thing that Tony can think of, however, is the fact that he distinctly remembers Loki saying ‘I need you to get on with it’. Not ‘I want’, ‘I _need_ ’. The problem is that Tony is nowhere near a psychologist, and he has no idea what that would mean.  
  
Although he does realise that it probably doesn’t mean anything good.  
  
\--------------------------  
  
Tony thinks all day. He sits through the debriefing, not listening as usual and nodding or shrugging in the right places. He sits through a movie with Steve, and he sits and watches Natasha and Clint train. Soon enough, though, the team realises that there is something wrong – Tony has never gone so long without insulting one of them. So they do the only thing they can think of – they call Pepper.  
  
After the break up, Pepper had pretty happily settled back into being Tony’s assistant and generally being in charge of, well, everything. She was an extremely busy woman, and the team knew that the only time they could call her was in the event of an emergency. So when she was called, she always came pretty damn quickly.  
  
Upon arriving at the mansion that all the Avengers shared, she is accosted by different theories from four different, seemingly worried friends of Tony’s, and Clint. Clint’s theories tend to range from ‘maybe aliens messed with his brain’ to ‘he just needs to get laid’ so Pepper writes off everything he has to say. Pepper is somewhat of a mother figure to the Avengers, so she is the only one who, with a wave of her hand, can get them to shut up and disappear.  
  
‘Tony?’ She calls as she enters the workshop, deciding that treating Tony like a scared animal is probably the best route to take.  
  
‘What does it mean if someone says ‘need’ instead of ‘want’?’ He asks, spinning around in his chair to face her.  
  
‘Well, it generally means that they need it, instead of just wanting it,’ she answers, giggling at Tony’s completely unimpressed look. ‘I’d need context before I could give you a straight answer.’  
  
‘And I can’t give you that context. But I still need an answer,’ Tony says, more to himself than to Pepper. ‘Right, this is completely hypothetical, okay? So, if someone tells you that they need you, when they could have just said they wanted you – is there something there to read into? Or could it just be a slip of the tongue?’  
  
‘In my experience, if we’re talking about people needing each other, then whether or not it was a slip of the tongue, it’d still be the truth. You can say you want somebody and either not mean it or be covering up for the fact that you need them, but it tends to be harder to say you need someone and not mean it. Why are we talking about this Tony? What happened?’ She asks, gently.  
  
‘Nothing!’ He exclaims, far too eagerly, before flashing one of his patented 1000-watt grins and spinning back to his computer screen. Pepper is about to push him further when her phone rings, and she is demanded back at the office to check over things. On her way out, she explains that it’s nothing but Tony thinking too much and he’ll be back to normal in a couple of days.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From now on it might seem a little disjointed because it's Tony's pov and it is meant to be like this. Promise.

And soon enough, he is back to normal. Tony thinks about it some more, decides that Loki _needed_ the release, and not the person he got it from. So he decides to just forget it. And then he’s back to his snarky, insulting self and no one pushes it further. Two days after normal Tony has returned the team are called out again – this time Loki’s perched atop a building and is simply making a whole lot of stuff explode. It isn’t the worst thing he’s ever done – in fact, there aren’t actually any people getting hurt from it, and it seems that he’s doing it to be a nuisance than to cause any real destruction.  
  
All that happens is that Tony has to fly around rescuing random trapped civilians and dodging debris. By the time that Loki finally stops and disappears again, without being apprehended, the team are tired and covered in dust. Fury arrives and asks them what happened and why he keeps managing to get away, and none of them have the heart to tell him that it’s because they’re not really trying to capture him – he’ll only escape again. They leave the clean-up with the lesser SHIELD agents and head home, each traipsing to their rooms to shower off the dirt and exhaustion from the last couple of hours.  
  
Tony is in the shower when it happens. The water is running down his back, the dust running off his body and down the drain, and he is running mental diagnostics of the suit – calculating repairs and trying to figure out a way to make the suit impervious to dirt, even though it is already watertight, so that shouldn’t even _be_ a problem when he feels hands run up his back, pausing briefly to gently stroke the cuts on his back that Loki’s nails caused a couple of nights previously. Tony shivers as the hands run around his body to rest on his front, framing his arc reactor. Opening his eyes, Tony stares straight into the green eyes reflected in the mirror hanging above the sink opposite them.  
  
‘What is this?’ Loki asks, looking genuinely curious, but Tony shakes his head.  
  
‘First, you tell me what the hell is going on with you.’ He says, anger leaking into his voice as he spins around to face Loki head on.  
  
‘Surely you know. You know better than any of them. The need, the desire. Even a god can only go for so long without needing to succumb to the pleasures of the flesh. And you are the only one I deem worthy enough to bed – you are the only one who is close to being my intellectual equal.’ Loki explains, a sinful smirk gracing his face as he leans down to lick at the damaged and overly sensitive skin surrounding the reactor.  
  
‘That… was not what I was expecting. So you’re here just because you’re horny and I’m just enough of a genius for you to choose me?’ Tony is about to argue more – ask why him and not some other genius, why it has to be one of the Avengers anyway, but Loki moves onto his knees so incredibly gracefully, and before Tony can form a coherent thought, there are lips wrapped around the head of his cock and his mouth has gone dry.  
  
Loki’s mouth is hotter than Tony would’ve thought it would be, considering how cold it is to kiss, and as Loki dips his head down, taking in the whole of Tony’s length, he can’t help but be amazed by his lack of a gag reflex and he stutters his hips forward, fighting against the hold Loki has on them. Tony’s head falls back, hitting the glass, and his hands wrap around the long black hair that it falling around Loki’s face. Loki looks up at him then, and there is something downright scandalous about that image – Loki’s lips wrapped thin around the base of his cock, yet there is still a smirk playing at the edge of those lips, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes, and Tony groans, low and long, thrusting forward just slightly in a silent demand for more.  
  
Loki bobs his head down and sucks hard as he pulls back – there’s a slight hint of teeth, just enough to drive Tony wild – and Tony is so overwhelmed by sensation. The water, now cold, is still pouring down his back, the heat of Loki’s mouth where it has pulled back to suckle at the very tip, digging his tongue into the slit, the feeling of a miraculously smooth hand tugging at the base of his cock, and the pressure of one of those long fingers pushing against his entrance and it’s too much, far too much. Tony comes with a cry of Loki’s name, hips pushing forward and even his toes are fucking curling and Loki swallows everything Tony has to offer.  
  
Tony pulls Loki up from his knees with the hold he has in his hair and pushes him back against the opposite wall of the shower, reaching up to kiss him deeply and thoroughly and this time there is no fight for dominance – Loki lets Tony take and control and Tony roams his tongue around Loki’s mouth tasting himself on top of the completely addictive taste of Loki. He reaches between them, grabbing Loki’s cock and he only has to stroke it once, twice and Loki’s coming over their stomachs again and Tony never breaks the kiss so he swallows down Loki’s moans and if he hears the slight outline of ‘ _Tony_ ’ – not ‘Stark’ but ‘Tony’ – he doesn’t comment on it, because it’s just a slip of the tongue.  
  
Tony barely has time to think and Loki is gone, leaving him to fall against the wall. Part of Tony knows that there is more to this than just Loki needing a release – why does he only come to Tony after they’ve fought? But once again, his lack of knowledge in the wide field of, well, people, has led to him becoming unstuck and he doesn’t really know what to think anymore. He’s not stupid enough to think that that was the last time Loki will appear, and Tony may not know much about love, but he’s pretty sure that the odd fuck here and there isn’t going to cause problems in that field. So he shuts off the shower, towels off and collapses into bed, vowing to get a straight answer out of Loki next time.  
  
\--------------------------  
  
Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t happen. The third time, Tony is blindsided in his workshop while making repairs – they haven’t fought Loki since the explosions incident, so Tony isn’t expecting it when he appears and they make out like horny teenagers before Loki fucks him on his workbench and leaves without a word.  
  
The fourth time, Tony is on a well-deserved break from the mansion, at Stark Tower, and he ends up fucking Loki over the bar, in full view of the spot of the room where the Hulk threw Loki around like a rag doll.  
  
After the fifth time (a very risky couple of blowjobs against the fridge in the kitchen when anyone could walk in on them – luckily no one does), Tony stops trying to track any sort of pattern in Loki’s movements, and learns to just enjoy it whenever he does appear. He doesn’t stop counting though. He has Jarvis keep track. He also has Jarvis register Loki’s energy signature so he can at least get a ‘sir’ in warning before he’s accosted.  
  
The team don’t even notice what’s happening, and he thinks Loki has something to do with that – he keeps them away, keeps them blind, because if people were to find out, he’d get kicked out of the Avengers Initiative, and it’s no fun if the villain isn’t screwing the hero. The only problem is, since this _thing_ started, Loki isn’t doing his job. That is, he isn’t causing trouble and killing people and doing generally Loki-ish things. No one’s really complaining though, because it’s not like Loki is their only enemy, but it concerns Tony. And if something concerns Tony, then it’ll damn well concern Steve too, because they are some weird representation of best friends, and even if Steve doesn’t know what’s going on, he’ll still walk around with a kicked-puppy dog face until Tony tells him.  
  
Now that, that annoys Tony. Not that he’s not grateful for being able to call Steve a friend, because that looked so unlikely in the early days, but now he does need someone to talk to about this – but how can he tell Captain America that the villain of their story keeps showing up and Tony just doesn’t want to fight him off – Tony’s not even sure that Steve’s ever actually had sex. And he knows he needs to tell him something, and soon, but he can’t lie to Steve. So he tells him the truth. Sort of.  
  
‘Do you ever wonder why Loki stopped being all God of Mischief-y?’ Tony asks one day, perched on the counter in the kitchen, while Steve makes pancakes. Steve spins around wielding a spatula and raising an eyebrow. Tony chuckles at his pink frilly apron, like he does every time he wears it. ‘I just mean, because he hasn’t attacked anything or caused any problems. Isn’t that what he’s supposed to do?’  
  
‘And you’re complaining? I would’ve thought you, of all people, would be grateful to have to fight less.’  
  
‘It just makes me think he’s up to something super-secret and super disastrous.’ Tony shrugs as he hops down from the counter. ‘Just- maybe we shouldn’t let our guards down so soon.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> crossposted to tumblr and ff.net.  
> reviews/comments are very welcome!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've said it before but; this is supposed to be as circular and disjointed as it seems, I promise!

After one of their _incidents (number 36)_ , and two months after the last time Loki had attacked anything, he disappeared. Tony didn’t see him for a week.  
  
The biggest problem was that this time away from Loki was really making Tony reassess his position. He doesn’t know a whole lot about love, but he was beginning to feel that, for him at least, this wasn’t just sex. He’d never slept with the same person this much without having to classify it as a relationship, and he was in completely uncharted waters. And this led to somewhat of a major breakdown.  
  
Loki is the villain – he destroys and kills and causes mayhem and he doesn’t care about people. He doesn’t even care about his own brother, although Tony is rather sketchy on the details of what went down in regards to that (not through lack of being told, he just never listens), he doesn’t get attached and he takes what he wants regardless of the consequences and the effect he has on other people.  
  
Tony is the playboy – he doesn’t do relationships. He flies around in a metal suit and saves people and he’s the face and name of a major corporation and he goes to galas and he charms people and he goes to bed with those people but he doesn’t call them afterwards and he often doesn’t see them again. He isn’t the type to just wait around for one person to call on him – he takes what he wants. So why was he sitting around, getting drunk, instead of facing up to Loki and taking what he wants?  
  
This won’t do. So Tony gets up from where he is slouched against his workbench, drawing patterns in the condensation on his glass and generally feeling sorry for himself, and he has the robots put a suit on him, and soon enough, he’s flying out to where Jarvis is telling him that his energy signature is. It’s a cave. A fucking _cave_. Tony can’t believe it – it’s just so… so typically villainy and not what Tony was expecting of Loki at all. Tony stumbles into the dark, sliding up his faceplate and using his repulsors as a light source, shining it over dark crevices and jagged rocks searching for a trace of Loki. He finds a tunnel and his drunken mind decides not to tell him that going down the dark ominous tunnel is probably a bad idea.  
  
The room it leads to is large and circular, carved into the rock with stalactites and stalagmites erupting from the ceiling and the floor rather menacingly. The wall opposite the entrance is covered in screens, and as Tony walks towards them, he sees that the screens are showing live video feeds from around the city.  
  
‘You should not be here, Stark.’  
  
Tony smirks. ‘Why? Are you up to something?’ He asks and some deeply hidden part of his brain tells him that he shouldn’t be teasing the god but he doesn’t care because he’s drunk and kind of irritated and just a little bit needy, but he still won’t turn around because he’s a little scared about what that desperation means.  
  
‘Even if I am, do you really think you could stop me by yourself?’  
  
‘I think you know I’m not actually here to stop you. Plus I don’t even know what you’re doing, so how do I know whether I want to stop it?’ Loki’s by his side at this point, a hint of a smirk playing at the edge of his features.  
  
‘Why are you here, Stark?’  
  
‘You _can_ call me Tony, you know. It won’t kill you. Plus I-‘ Tony stops, swinging his arm around Loki’s shoulder, forgetting that he is currently wearing a metal suit and noticing the way Loki doesn’t even flinch when the full weight of his arm falls on his shoulder. ‘I missed you.’ He whispers in Loki’s ear, not missing his slight shudder.  
  
‘You still should not be here.’  
  
‘Aw, do you not miss me? Or are you just too independent to admit it?’ And yes, Tony should definitely not be pushing this especially when he is drunk and not in full control of himself and he probably can’t defend himself if Loki were to attack. Loki’s eyes slide over to Tony’s, flashing anger and irritation and something that Tony can probably trick himself into believing is denial or realisation or something.  
  
‘Leave, Stark.’ Loki steps away, ducking under Tony’s arm and walking towards a door in the wall. ‘Leave, before I am forced to make you.’ Tony flinches at that – this is not what was supposed to happen, and Loki’s words are filled with (forced) venom and Tony’s starting to get whiplash from the conflicting emotions. Loki just _had_ to feel something, after all, he was the one who started this. Tony doesn’t want to argue though, and maybe that should’ve been the first sign that Loki was really starting to affect him, so he just walks out and flies home, surprisingly more sober now that he was when he arrived.  
  
\--------------------------  
  
Tony still doesn’t know much about love, but he’s starting to feel like he’s falling. And now is the perfect time to contemplate this, because he is actually falling to what will inevitably be his death unless the Hulk appears and catches him. The power to the suit cut out but the arc reactor is still working and Tony is confused and not entirely sure why, but he does know that now is the perfect time to think about Loki. And maybe the fact that he’s thinking about Loki as he falls to his death says something, but Tony isn’t sure he wants to know what it implies. What he does want to know is why Loki does what he does. Why he destroys everything he touches and everybody that cares for him. He spoke to Thor and the big guy really does love and miss his brother, but no, Loki’s hell bent on destroying the poor man. Tony was really starting to feel something more than lust for Loki, but he made one mistake of appearing where he wasn’t wanted, one stupid mistake of thinking that he could break the rules Loki had seemingly put into place and now he hasn’t seen Loki in something like a month (23 days) not that he’s counting or anything.  
  
Tony is experiencing this ache in his chest, and he doesn’t know whether Loki is to blame or the weight of the suit that is slowly dragging him to a very explosive and gruesome death is the problem, but he does know that he is feeling like he is falling metaphorically as well as literally. He also feels like in both senses, his life is in Loki’s hands – he can either catch him or let him fall to what will inevitably an extremely painful death, crushed under the thing that he’d saved so many lives with. Maybe if Loki saves him physically, he’ll save him emotionally, because in that month (23 days) Tony has done very little except fall a little more and mope around the mansion – drinking and not sleeping and not eating and ignoring everybody. But maybe this isn’t about Loki. Maybe this is about the fact that maybe Tony deserves to die for being such a miserable bastard all the time, but Tony doesn’t want to think about that. He doesn’t want to be sad when he dies. He wants to go out the way he lived – with buried feelings and buried aches and hiding behind a bright smile and a whole lot of charm. So he thinks of Loki, of how the time he’d stay _afterwards_ grew longer each time, of how he smelt and how he tasted, and he lets that smile take over his features as he blacks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> crossposted to tumblr and ff.net.  
> reviews/comments are very welcome!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I'm a nice person, you can have the next chapter now so you don't have to stay hanging. Also this chapter can be dedicated to everybody that's commented so far. You guys are awesome, seriously! :)

And so maybe Loki did save him. He has to have done. Because the next thing he knows, Tony is waking up in his bed and he most certainly is not dead and it might’ve been a dream and Tony is confused now.  
  
‘Jarvis? What happened last night?’  
  
‘It’s been a while since I’ve heard that question, sir.’ The voice answers, playing the video feed from the previous night. Loki is nowhere to be found, and instead Tony just materialises in his bed at just after midnight. Tony is even more confused now.  
  
He crawls out of bed, gets dressed and tries not to think about the fact that Loki (because it has to have been Loki because only Loki would do it so dramatically) put him into bed naked, and heads down to the kitchen, intent on finding _someone_ who knows what happened yesterday.  
  
Instead he finds Loki perched on the counter and drinking a cup of tea.  
  
Tony has to do a major double take before he can splutter out a ‘what?’ and Loki just elegantly raises an eyebrow and smirks at him. Now Tony is completely and utterly confused and his head hurts and he just wants to go back to bed. But he knows he should probably find out what the hell is going on, so he takes a couple of steps into the kitchen, takes the cup of coffee Loki gestures to, hops up onto the counter next to him and decides to try again.  
  
‘So, _what_?’  
  
‘It is quite simple really – you were falling at a rather alarming speed, so I caught you and returned you to your bed.’  
  
‘Right. Care to explain how I was falling in the first place?’  
  
‘Certainly. It appears you were asleep. And flying. So-‘  
  
‘When there was a malfunction I wasn’t awake enough to fix it.’  
  
‘It appears so.’ Loki looks at him out of the corner of his eye and Tony sighs.  
  
‘Why did you save me?’  
  
‘Because it simply would not do to have you flattened on a sidewalk.’  
  
‘Did you just make a joke?’  
  
‘Possibly.’ Tony laughs, shaking his head and Loki chuckles beside him.  
  
‘Where is everybody?’ He asks, gesturing around and the empty kitchen.  
  
‘Answering a call on the other side of the city. I had a feeling that you did not wish to reveal the nature of our relationship to them.’  
  
‘Our relationship?’  
  
‘Well, I had assumed that that was the appropriate term for it.’ Loki answers, sounding unsure.  
  
‘I’m no expert in relationships, but I’m fairly certain that you’re not supposed to disappear for months on end.’  
  
‘It was not _months_. It was barely even one month. And I had some… things to attend to.’  
  
‘That sounds menacing. So we are in a relationship then?’ Tony questions, trying not to think about the gravity of that statement and how cliché it sounds and how desperate he is for the answer to be positive because he should not be _desperate_ to be in a relationship with anybody let alone a goddamn... well, _god_.  
  
‘It may be extremely dysfunctional, but yes – I see no reason why we cannot define it as such.’ And Tony also ignores the light feeling in his chest and that and he fights the grin that threatens to stretch across his face.  
  
Tony sighs, leaning slightly into Loki, pleased when he doesn’t pull away. ‘Is this the part where we declare our love and ride off into the sunset together?’  
  
Loki pulls away then. ‘I do not understand that reference. And I do not think anyone mentioned love. I do not believe I even understand the meaning of that word anymore.’ He says, quietly, and he ducks his head, looking into his tea. Tony feels like that is probably the most emotion he has ever gotten out of the man in this past three months of them dancing around each other, and he isn’t going to let it slide.  
  
Now, Tony isn’t one for dramatic speeches, but it’s hard to deny that he’s been thinking that same thing recently. How can he define his feelings for Loki if he has nothing to measure it against? So he tells Loki what he’s been using to get him through the night.  
  
‘I don’t think love has a meaning. I think you define it for yourself. It’s what you feel towards a certain person, whether that’s as a friend, as someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, or somebody that you like having a little bit of fun with.’  
  
‘And we are the latter?’  
  
‘It would seem so.’ Tony nudges Loki with his shoulder, smiling at him. ‘I don’t not love you. But I don’t love you yet either.’  
  
‘I do not not love you too.’  
  
They laugh again, and silence descends upon them. Tony hears the door open, and the comfortable feeling of someone against his side disappears, and Tony looks over at the empty space, laughing to himself and shaking his head as he jumps down and goes to meet the rest of the team.  
  
\--------------------------  
  
Three days later sees Tony in his workshop, trying to work out a way to make his suit fly him home safely if he is to fall asleep or pass out while inside it, and it’s turning out to be more difficult than he’d originally thought.  
  
‘A little magic might prove useful.’  
  
Tony spins around, coming face to face with Loki, and he jumps, grabbing his arc reactor in shock. ‘You need to stop sneaking around all silently.’  
  
‘Fine. I shall sneak around a little louder next time.’ Tony smiles at that, and leans forward a little, taking the initiative when Loki doesn’t pull away and pressing a chaste kiss to his lips. Loki follows him as he pulls away and lures him into a deeper kiss, tongues fighting and tasting, and god dammit Tony really has missed this, the fight and the cold and the taste of the magic, but he’ll be damned if he’s ever going to admit that out loud.  
  
And now Tony is considering how many things that he won’t say out loud and how many things he won’t admit to thinking about but before he can get concerned about the amount of things he keeps buried, Loki crowds him against the workbench, hands on his hips, and his mind goes blank. They don’t go any further than that. They just kiss, and Tony feels like he’s back in high school again, but for once, he isn’t trying to get the other party to go further – he’s perfectly content just to stay at the kissing stage. He brings one hand up to play with the hairs at the nape of Loki’s neck, the other hand coming to rest on his waist. Eventually, the need for air becomes too great and they pull away, Loki resting his head against Tony’s forehead, eyes closed.  
  
They stay like that for a while. Until Clint and Steve walk in and everybody freezes for an _extremely_ awkward moment. But neither Loki nor Tony pull away, until Steve coughs and tells Tony that they need to talk to him and they’ll be upstairs. Loki then places a brief kiss to the corner of Tony’s mouth and does his disappearing act. Tony sighs, rubs at his forehead and turns towards the stairs.  
  
When he reaches the top, he sees an intervention waiting for him. The whole team, plus Pepper are waiting for him with various looks on their faces, ranging from a twisted sort of pride (Natasha) to a look of utter scandal (Steve). Tony sighs and contemplates fleeing very fast in the opposite direction before realising that he can’t outrun any of them (except probably Pepper, but only because she’s wearing those heels) and resigning himself to what he knows will be an extremely fun conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really like this chapter, but it's a way to get from a to b so it'll have to do. It does allow for some expansion on their relationship and for the team to find out but it's still a bit of a filler. Sorry!  
> crossposted to tumblr and ff.net.  
> reviews/comments are very welcome!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like this chapter! I hope you guys do too. :)

When he breaks the silence with a ‘so…’, Pepper marches forward, hugging him and whispering ‘thank god’ under her breath.

‘I actually thought for a minute there that you’d gone insane-‘ She tries to explain, but she’s interrupted by Steve.

‘Isn’t this a type of insane, though?’ Steve looks livid – the angriest Tony’s ever seen him, but he knows the soldier won’t hurt him. It’s still kind of scary though. ‘What do you think you’re doing with _him_?’

‘Fonduing? Tony helpfully supplies (once, and only once, Tony had asked Steve about his father, and Steve had regaled him with the tale of the fondue incident – Tony had laughed for days). Steve’s glare hardens, his fists clench, and Tony rethinks his earlier decision that making a joke out of this would be the best course of action.

‘Well…’ Clint interrupts, trying to defuse the situation. ‘ _Finally_. You owe me twenty bucks.’ He aims the last part at Bruce, who grumbles but hands the money over. Tony raises an eyebrow at them and Clint shrugs. ‘You could read the sexual tension from a mile off.’ He explains, before announcing that he only wanted his money and practically waltzing out of the door while Tony worries about how wrong the world is if _Clint_ knew what was going on before he did.

Bruce stands next, clearly not wanting to be a part of this. ‘I don’t trust Loki, and I do not like this. But as stupid as it may be, I trust you. Just don’t let him kill me in my sleep?’ Upon receiving an affirmative from Tony, he nods and leaves.

Steve is calmer, and he sighs. ‘I trust you too, but this is still the guy who has killed, maimed, destroyed and I can’t forgive that.’

‘I’m not asking you to forgive anything, Cap. I’m just asking you not to do anything drastic. Maybe just trust my judgement and, uh, not tell Fury?’

Steve’s eyes soften, but his stance does not. ‘I won’t do anything,’ he concedes. ‘But I will keep an eye on him.’ Tony nods, smiles and Steve leaves.

Thor stands as well, but he says nothing. He simply slaps Tony on the back (nearly flooring him) and smiles sadly, before retreating to the training room, and Tony realises how hard this is for him. Loki is willing to sleep with the enemy, a relative stranger, but he still will not talk to his brother. That has to hurt.

Natasha looks at him, and waits until they can no longer hear Thor’s footsteps and Tony is starting to get uncomfortable, before allowing her face to break into a smile. ‘Well, if he kills me in my bed, there’ll be hell to pay. But other than that, I can deal. After all, it’s none of my business.’

Tony is so extremely grateful for her right now. ‘Super spy and master assassin Natasha Romanoff, a romantic at heart? Someone alert the press!’

Natasha stands, punching him hard on the arm, and she leans in to whisper in his ear. ‘If you tell the others that I might actually be a girl, no one will find your body.’ She’s still grinning, but in this menacing way that makes Tony knows that she is _not_ kidding.

Pepper shakes her head, but hugs him one last time and admits that she’s just glad he’s okay, and that as long as he’s happy nothing else matters. She lets Natasha walk her out then, leaving Tony on his own. He escapes to his room, feeling dazed and slightly elated that his adoptive family is so accepting of this. He is sure Steve will come around eventually, and he had been expecting reactions that bordered on the murderous, so he can deal with a little negativity. It was nice to be wrong about people for once.

Before he has time to reflect on what just happened in more detail, long pale fingers are taking his glass from his hand and Loki is downing the amber liquid that he had just poured and Tony is mesmerised by the ashen column of his neck and the way his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.

He leans gracefully across Tony to put the glass down on the bar, before reaching round to join their lips briefly, pushing Tony back towards the bed and forcing him to sit on the edge, elegantly straddling his lap and reclaiming his lips.

‘Eager, are we?’ Tony asks when they separate for air, and Loki simply grunts, pushing Tony backwards until he is lying down and removing their clothes with that same wave of a hand he has used every time – one day, Tony would get to unwrap Loki, one day, he’ll make him beg, but for now Tony is running under Loki’s power, and he isn’t complaining. There is something rushed about this time, though.

Loki hovers over Tony, reaching between them to wrap a delicate hand around both of their cocks, muttering a few words under his breath to cover his hand in lube. He bends his head down to bite and kiss and suck at Tony’s neck, and Tony grabs at Loki’s shoulder. Too soon, Loki stops, and Tony arches up to try and keep the contact, making a keening noise when Loki’s hand disappears all together.

Sitting back on his haunches, Loki mutters again, before reaching behind himself and oh. _Oh_. Tony’s breath catches in his throat as he watches Loki open up his own body and fuck that is the hottest thing Tony’s ever seen, and he’s seen a hell of a lot. Loki throws his head back and Tony can’t help but think _fuck, he’s beautiful_ – all lean lines and pale skin and oh god that was a fourth finger and Tony’s skin is starting to feel too hot and too tight and Loki looks at him, the green irises barely noticeable around the blown, black pupils and Tony can’t help but feel like he’s falling again, falling into those eyes, into this abyss. Tony’s minds shudders to a halt as Loki wraps one hand around Tony’s cock, heavy and hard, and he lines up and suddenly Tony is slipping inside and the heat is incredible and Loki is riding him, thighs shaking as he raises himself up, only to plunge back down again. Tony is shaking too, hands clenching at Loki’s legs as Loki rests his hands on Tony’s chest, and Tony’s thrusting up and trying to keep up with the brutal pace Loki is setting.

Tony is close, so close, and he can tell by the way Loki is moving and the look in his eyes that he is too, so Tony sits up, wrapping his hands around Loki’s back and Loki’s hands slide up, one in Tony’s hair and the other on his shoulder as he uses the new position to pull Tony deeper into him and Tony leans forward, latching onto Loki’s neck, moving one hand down to stroke at Loki’s cock and then Loki’s hips stutter, insides clenching as he comes, but he keeps moving – dragging Tony’s orgasm out of him.

Neither of them moves, a heavy silence settling over them, broken only by heavy breathing. Loki closes his eyes, and Tony mutters for Jarvis to turn out the lights, admiring the way the blue light from his arc reactor plays havoc with Loki’s angular features, shadows falling over his face making him look like the criminal he’s meant to be and making him look vulnerable at the same time. Tony reaches up, sweeping his fingers along the sharp cheekbones, tucking rogue strands of black hair behind his ear.

Loki opens his eyes then, eyes that are alight with the blue light and a spark that Tony is starting to feel like he understands and in that moment Tony forgets any reservations he has about this, because this feels right and he feels complete and he feels completely cliché. But he doesn’t care because his heart feels like it is swelling and Tony smiles. Not one of his bright, public grins, but something that he doesn’t think has ever graced his features before – it’s small, private and betrays his feelings. Loki dances his fingers along Tony’s jaw, and brushes the pads across his lips, and Tony places a gentle kiss to the digit before Loki replaces the finger with his lips and they kiss slowly, languorously, hands dancing over sweat-cooled skin. Tony moves backwards, dragging Loki under the sheets with him and the god curls around his side, head on his chest, stroking the skin around the arc reactor.

‘You never did explain to me what this is.’

‘You’re not seriously going to ruin this moment by asking me that, are you?’

‘I am simply curious.’ Loki looks up at him through his eyelashes and dammit Tony cannot resist that.

‘I was in an… accident. And there’s shrapnel trying to claw its way into my heart. This-‘ He taps the reactor. ‘-is an electromagnet. It keeps the metal away, and keeps me alive. It also powers the suit.’ He shouldn’t be telling Loki this – but he sets it up as a test. The god could reach over and pull it out and Tony wouldn’t be able to fight back, but a part of Tony trusts him not to and so Tony just watches as Loki leans forward and kisses the metal edge of the arc reactor, before placing his head back onto Tony’s chest.

‘Then I find myself grateful for its existence, despite the fact that it controls the thing that you have repeatedly tried to kill me with.’ Loki sighs and Tony freezes. That sounds like an admission of feeling and Tony’s not sure whether to press that or not. But he’s never been good at censoring himself.

‘Does that mean you’re grateful for my existence?’ He asks, and Loki rolls over, propping his head on his hands on Tony’s stomach. Loki studies him for a long moment, and Tony squirms under the power of his gaze.

‘I suppose I am.’ Tony bites his lip, and pulls Loki up, kissing his forehead before tucking his head under his chin and wrapping his arm around his shoulders.

‘I suppose I’m grateful for you too. Even though you’ve tried to kill me too. A lot worse, as well.’

Loki makes a noncommittal noise and snuggles in to Tony, and he has to fight laughter at that, because there’s something so domestic about this, and Tony gently squeezes him, but neither of them say another word, Loki’s breathing evening out as he falls asleep.

Tony sighs, realising that something has changed now. This isn’t just sex anymore, and it isn’t just _maybe-something-more_ anymore – it _is_ something more and that means that he probably can’t keep it a secret from SHIELD much longer, and he is going to have to tell the team that he might possibly be in love with Loki but mostly, he’s going to have to tell _Loki_ that he might be in love with Loki and hope that Loki feels the same and then they’re going to have to decide what this means. Can they still live in the mansion? How does one even go about having a relationship with an Asgardian sorcerer? Is he going to have to ask Thor’s permission? _That’s_ a conversation he’d really rather avoid. The only problem that Tony really settles while staring at his ceiling that night is that he isn’t falling anymore. He’s already hit the ground. He just needs to determine whether he is the only one who has.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> crossposted to tumblr and ff.net.  
> reviews/comments are very welcome!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems like nothing happens in this chapter, but it is important. Feelings are ascertained and Loki moves in.

Tony doesn’t sleep that night, instead he thinks (about Loki and about various engineering feats that he wants to attempt) and he enjoys the feeling of the god’s cold skin against his own and he wonders if Loki will ever let him see his true form – the one that, according to Thor, kick-started all his anger. It’s around six in the morning when Loki stirs, blinking and smiling up at Tony and he is suddenly struck by the happiness in Loki’s eyes and it takes his breath away that that is what he looks like in this moment of complete openness and maybe this is what he feels and Tony doesn’t feel so alone at the bottom anymore.

‘You need to talk to your brother.’ Never let it be said that Tony shied away from what he thought was the right thing, and the pleasant atmosphere comes crashing down as Loki shoves sharply away from Tony’s chest, sitting up and facing away. Tony reaches up and traces each of the vertebrae of his spine and Loki doesn’t flinch away, so maybe he hasn’t totally screwed everything up.

‘He is not my brother.’

Tony sighs. ‘Yeah, okay, you’re adopted. Doesn’t mean he isn’t your brother – he’s still the one you grew up with and all that sentimental shit, so the least you could do is talk to him. He misses you. And I know you miss him too.’

It’s Loki’s turn to sigh this time, as he pulls his knees up to his chest and rests his chin on them. But he doesn’t say anything, and Tony doesn’t push it anymore and knows not to protest when Loki swings his legs out of the bed, dressing and disappearing in one gesture, echoing the way he’d left after their first time. However, this time was different, as Tony knew that he would return.

So he just rolls over and falls asleep.

\--------------------------

He doesn’t wake up until a good four hours later, and he knows that isn’t going to go back to sleep, so he gets dressed and goes out on his daily search for coffee, stopping short in the doorway to the lounge when he sees Loki and Thor sat together, their heads inclined towards each other and muttering. Tony smiles, feels proud of himself, and then carries on into the kitchen.

Steve is in the kitchen when he arrives, and hands him a mug of steaming coffee with one hand, while he pours milk onto his Lucky Charms with the other. Tony wants to comment on the fact that there’s something incredibly childish about that, and the fact that Steve is normally so concerned about balanced diets and eating healthily but he’s too tired and he needs to drink his coffee.

‘What did you do?’ Steve asks, taking Tony’s arm and leading him to the table, where they sit opposite each other.

‘Wha’?’ Tony is too tired to be coherent right now.

‘Thor and Loki. I assume you had something to do with it.’

‘Oh, um.’ He stops, drinking his coffee and waiting for the caffeine to work its way into his system. ‘I just told Loki that he should talk to Thor.’

‘And he did.’

‘Yep.’ Steve raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything else. They eat/drink in silence for a little while, and then Loki comes in, leans down and whispers that he’ll be back later in Tony’s ear, reciprocating the kiss Tony starts before turning and _walking_ out of the room. Now that is a strange sight – Loki actually walking instead of teleporting or whatever the fuck it is he normally does.

Thor wanders in after Loki has left, and Tony finds himself pulled out of his seat and into Thor’s arms, engulfed in a suffocating hug. Flailing around and gasping gets him nowhere, until Steve interrupts.

‘Thor, gently. He needs to breathe, remember?’ And Thor lets him go then, resting his gigantic hands on his shoulder.

‘Tony Stark, you have brought my brother back to me. I am in your debt.’ And Tony is still not awake enough to deal with people, let alone people being in his debt.

‘It was nothing. Honestly, I just made a suggestion.’ He says, at the same time Steve announces his concerns.

‘Surely it can’t be all fine and dandy already?’

Thor ignores Tony’s protests, and answers Steve, ‘Our relationship is not yet salvaged, but he speaks to me without hatred. I feel that I may be able to make Loki see our side, and he can join us. This would be favourable, would it not?’

‘Well, I bet Tony’ll think so.’

‘ _I’m right here_.’ Tony huffs. ‘And I think Loki could be a valuable ally, whether he’s in my bed at the end of the day or not.’

‘I thought we were finished with this topic?’ Clint asks as him and Natasha enter the room on their way to the kitchen after their morning training rituals.

‘Thor thinks he can get Loki to be on our side.’ Steve fills them in.

‘Do we trust him now then?’ Bruce asks, walking through with a half-eaten apple in his hand.

‘He is my brother. He would not harm me.’

‘Because he hasn’t tried in the past.’ Everyone knows Clint is still tetchy over what happened with Loki, but he doesn’t say this vehemently, simply as a statement of the facts, and Tony finds himself grateful for that, because if Clint can deal with this very real threat of Loki joining them, then the others can deal with it as well.

‘Things are different now though, aren’t they?’ Tony isn’t sure whether Natasha directs this at Tony because she wants his confirmation or whether she’s just trying to make him the centre of the argument, considering he’s the one that started this.

‘ _I_ think so. I think he thinks so too. I mean, why else would he talk to Thor?’ Tony answers, shrugging.

‘So, it’s about more than you two screwing now?’ Bruce asks, and Tony frowns because he doesn’t like the sound of that.

‘Bruce, calm down. Surely it’s better for him to be here than possibly planning our demise?’ Steve interjects, ever the voice of reason.

‘What if he’s here _and_ planning our demise?’ Clint asks.

‘He isn’t. I’m not some girly romantic who thinks that our _whatever-this-is_ is enough to overcome everything, but think about it. He has the opportunity to kill me all the time, and he hasn’t done it yet. So maybe we should just have a little faith?’

‘I agree with Stark. A little faith might be just what my brother needs.’

‘I say we just ride this out. If he tries anything, we deal with it then. But he would be better on our side, and maybe not assuming that he’s going to kill us would be enough of an incentive for him to not kill us.’ Natasha says, with an air of finality that doesn’t allow for argument.

Everyone either nods or shrugs, and they carry on with what they were doing. Tony stands there for another moment, surprised and pleased that that argument was over so quickly. He heads down to his workshop, figuring that if Loki’s gone and everyone else is busy, he might as well do something useful. Plus, he hasn’t done any real work in a while, and he misses it.

\--------------------------

The next few days carry on in much the same vein – Tony wakes up to Loki curled around him (although they’re not having sex every night and Loki’s not always there when Tony falls asleep), tries to stop analysing every little thing Loki does, and then he works all day until someone drags him out of the workshop and the whole process is repeated.

One night, Tony decides to be brave and actually ask Loki what his general intentions are. ‘Do you have some sort of sinister ulterior motive?’

‘Pardon?’ Loki looks over to him from where he is resting next to Tony.

‘I mean, are you going to kill us all in our sleep?’

‘I was not planning on it.’

‘So, are you going to join our side and fight for the greater good?’

‘I was not planning on that either.’ Loki moves his gaze to the ceiling, a clear indication that he does not want this conversation to go further. Tony ignores it.

‘You should, you know. We’d be a kick ass team.’

‘Are you implying that we are a team?’ Tony rolls his eyes and gently kicks Loki’s shin.

‘I’m not saying that we should put a label on this. But I am saying that we can’t pretend it’s just sex anymore. And you should probably move in, so I can make sure you’re not trying to kill us. And you’re here all the time anyway.’

‘Are you saying you have _feelings_ for me, Stark?’

‘Seriously, will you please just call me Tony? It won’t damage that silver tongue of yours. And I do. Not _I’m forever yours feelings_ , but I’m only human and this much contact with someone was always going to make me like them.’

‘You never know that, and I know how much you like my tongue the way it is.’ He wiggles his eyebrows in a way that was so unbecoming, so utterly _not_ Loki that Tony dissolves into (extremely manly) giggles. ‘I approve of you too, Stark. And I might be beginning to understand what you meant before.’

‘Before?’

‘We have to define love for ourselves. I think you may just be defining love for me. Although I shall deny it if you reveal that to anyone.’

‘Going all sentimental on me, are you?’ Tony leans across to whisper into Loki’s ear. ‘And don’t tell anyone this, but I’ve already defined love for myself. And it’s you.’ Loki’s eyes widen in realisation, a faint blush staining his cheeks, before he rolls over lightning fast to straddle Tony, pinning his arms above his head.

The kiss Loki delivers to Tony is fast and desperate and it occurs to Tony that he might just be the first person to tell Loki that he loves him in this way. So Tony returns the desperation, the frantic motions and afterwards, when Loki is asleep on his chest, Tony thinks that if this is what being in love really feels like, then he could seriously get used to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> crossposted to tumblr and ff.net.  
> reviews/comments are very welcome!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm building up to something I promise. Also Fury is in this chapter!

The next day, Loki is gone when Tony wakes up. At first, Tony is concerned, but then he spies a note on the pillow that says _I will be back later. And I do hope you were serious about me moving in_ in extravagant, loopy _green_ letters. Tony grins at that, feels a sense of pride, and then realises that he needs to tell the other people that live in this house.

And he does. Rather handily, they’re all eating breakfast together when he walks in. ‘Loki’s moving in.’

Thor cheers, Natasha laughs and shakes her head, Clint looks confused, Bruce looks concerned and Steve looks torn.

‘So, this thing between you is serious?’ Steve asks.

‘It looks like it.’ And everyone looks surprised at that, because they may not have known each other long, but they all realised that this is Tony Stark – man who sleeps with everything that moves and bombed out of his last and, until now, only serious relationship (Pepper) in less than four months.

Everyone is speechless, except Thor, who stands and walks over to Tony, placing his hand on his shoulder. ‘I am happy for you, Stark. However, I must make it clear that if you are to hurt my brother, then I will have to hurt you.’

Tony is somewhat nervous now. ‘I don’t plan on hurting him, big guy.’ He says, and Thor pats his shoulder before moving on into the kitchen and loudly announcing that he must find more of the miraculous ‘fortunate gems’ that everyone else knows means Lucky Charms.

Natasha stands next, hugging Tony and telling him that she’s happy for him, but if he gets her killed there’ll be hell to pay. But she does it jokingly (he hopes) and he returns her smile before she drags Clint off for them to train some more. It is strange how much those two train, but everybody (well, Tony and Bruce) know that ‘training’ is just a code word for ‘fucking like rabbits’.

Bruce sighs. ‘I’m still not ecstatic about this. But I trust your judgment. And he would be better as an ally than an enemy. Just- be careful.’ Tony nods, and Bruce smiles slightly before heading off to his lab.

‘I guess it’s your turn to impart your feelings about this, then.’ Tony says, sitting down opposite Steve.

‘I’m happy for you, I am. But you do realise if he’s going to be living here, you actually have to tell Fury now, right?’

Tony drops his head to the table and immediately regrets it when pain radiates through his skull. Steve stands, gathering his plate and his mug, patting Tony on the head as he passes.

‘Fuck.’

\--------------------------

The whole thing couldn’t have been better timed. No sooner has Tony resolved to just avoid Fury for the next, like, forever, than is he calling them in to fight some creepy scientist who has rogue giant rats running around the subway. It’s nothing too challenging, but it takes a while, and by the time they’re all in a conference room for the debriefing (Dr. Wannabe Evil in a cell somewhere), they are all exhausted and ready to head home.

Fury yells at them for a while about unnecessary destruction and costs and can they please be more careful when fighting giant fucking _rats_ in the fucking _subway_ before letting them go, and they all disperse impressively quickly. Tony stands, takes a deep breath, and confesses.

‘I’ve been sleeping with Loki for a few months and now he’s moving into the mansion and the team are fine with it.’

Fury narrows his one eye, and that vein in his forehead looks just about ready to explode. ‘Say that again?’

‘I’d really rather not, and judging by the fact that you look like you’re about to have a coronary, I’d say you understood me perfectly well.’

‘How did this start?’

‘I’d really rather not get into the dirty details. All you really need to know is that I am _this_ close to getting him to side with us and also he has had plenty of opportunities by this point to kill us all and he hasn’t.’

‘Stark-‘

‘It’s under control, okay? He’s fine. Now, I’m going to leave you to have your breakdown in private.’ Tony backs out of the room before taking off, not answering the calls of ‘ _STARK!_ ’ that follow him down the hall.

\--------------------------

Tony doesn’t get away with it for long – Fury calls him into his office bright and early the next morning and lets Tony sit down on the other side of the desk. He stands then, turning to look out of the window that faces across the compound. He doesn’t say anything for long enough for Tony to start fidgeting, and then he spins around, his lone eye staring into Tony’s fucking _soul_.

‘I understand that I probably can’t do anything to make you change your mind. Even though your decision is one hell of a stupid ass one, I’m not willing to give you any more reasons to be difficult to work with. So, this is what’s going to happen. You can let Loki move in – but you do not tell the press. And, if he ends up hurting anyone after this, anyone that isn’t an immediate threat to the civilian population or the team, then he will be arrested and sent so far underground not even you will be able to find him. Oh, and I’ll probably kill you. Understood?’

Swallowing, Tony nods, not even able to think of a witty comeback. He leaves when Fury allows him to, and returns to the house to deliver the news to the team and Loki.

The only problem is, he returns to a battlefield. Loki and Thor are fighting – lightning and magic cracking across the landscape as they fight in the garden. Soil is thrown everywhere and craters the size of the fucking _moon_ are being dug into the grass. Tony edges around the battle as best he can, demanding an answer from Natasha as soon as he reaches her.

‘This is how they train on Asgard, apparently.’ She explains, smirking as Tony winces when a bolt of lightning hits down, throwing Loki backwards. ‘Don’t worry, Thor won’t hurt your _boyfriend_.’ She teases.

‘He is _not_ my-‘ Tony sighs, rubbing a hand across his forehead. ‘Oh, who am I kidding? He’s totally my boyfriend.’

Natasha laughs, bumping her shoulder against Tony’s, but she doesn’t reply – choosing instead to duck when an entire flowerbed comes flying at her. This makes Loki look over at them, noticing Tony for the first time, and he gestures at Thor. It’s only when the fighting pauses that Tony realises he was motioning for a break. He jogs over to where Tony is standing and ducks to kiss him, but Tony steps away. Loki’s brow creases in confusion.

‘Nu-uh. I am not kissing you while you have _that_ on your head.’ He says petulantly, waving a hand at the helmet atop Loki’s head.

Loki chuckles, but he does remove the helmet before trying for another kiss, and this one Tony eagerly responds to.

‘Ugh, will you two _please_ get a room?’ Tony pulls away then, laughing at Clint’s disgust.

‘Well, considering we are currently stood on the doorstep of a mansion that _I_ paid for, I’d say this was pretty damn close to having a room, wouldn’t you?’ Clint groans, whispers something in Natasha’s ear and walks back inside. She follows him.

Thor walks up behind Loki, slapping him on the back, and declaring that they call it a day. Loki nods, looking, well, nervous. Tony shrugs it off, dragging Loki inside and forcing him to sit on a couch. Before he does, Loki shimmers until his armour is gone and he is wearing _sinfully tight_ leather trousers and a loose green shirt. Tony is pulled onto Loki's lap, straddling him, and Loki rejoins their lips, and it isn't desperate or needy or lustful - it's just them being content together. They only stop when they're starting to rut against each other like teenagers and Tony realises that they should probably draw a line somewhere. Tony climbs off of Loki, and sits next to him instead, curling into his side. Loki rests his chin on the top of Tony's head, and Tony feels perfect.

Maybe he should be thinking about how this relationship moved far too fast and one minute they were all ‘I don’t love you’ and then soon enough they were lying in bed again and admitting their feelings. And part of Tony is scared – he’s so scared of messing things up and losing this that he’s having trouble justifying the whole thing to himself. He wants this to be worth the inevitable pain when one of them (probably Tony) screws up and it has to end, but at the moment he’s having a hard time enjoying what they’ve got at the moment.

Because that’s the problem with Tony. People always accuse him of never thinking about the future, but the opposite is true. He thinks about the future too much. He’s always thinking of how everything could, and will, go wrong and he can’t enjoy the present. He doesn’t do well in long term relationships because he freaks out and messes up and that’s what happened with him and Pepper, because it wasn’t that he didn’t love her because he did, _so much_ , and that scared him, so he amplified all their faults until she couldn’t take it anymore.

But this relationship (and he’s given up avoiding calling it that) with Loki feels different. He doesn’t know if it’s because it happened the way it did or because it happened so suddenly, but he’s taken a lot longer to question how long this will last than he ever has before and maybe it’s because they’ve only just qualified what this is or maybe it’s because they have yet to just come out and say those three words and Tony doesn’t know if this is a good sign. He’s also questioning whether they can build a stable relationship on these foundations.

Tony is a commitment-phobe who doesn’t sleep or eat regularly and drinks more than he should. And Loki is an evil villain who kills and maims and causes a whole lot of trouble. But since this thing started Tony has been sleeping pretty much every night and he’s been drinking less and complaining less when people force him to eat. And everyone knows Loki’s stopped with the evil behaviour. So surely that means that they’re meant to be because they balance each other out and they make each other a more tolerable person and isn’t that what love is?

But on the other hand, all they have is sex. Yeah, they’ve had the odd conversation about feelings and all that shit but they’ve never been out on a date, they’ve never even spent time together outside of the bedroom and what if what they have is purely physical and it turns out that Tony isn’t clever enough for Loki? From every angle this looks doomed to fail, but there is a small part of Tony, of his _heart_ that begs for this to work, for them to stay together. Begs for them to stay on the same side, fighting together and working together because for the first time Tony has this sense of belonging. The Avengers are like a family to him – the family he never had – and Loki completes that and Tony can’t lose this, he can’t. Being with Loki feels like coming home.

Tony is shaken from his thoughts by the noise of five people trudging out the door, but before he can turn and ask where they’re going, the door has slammed. Loki rises and slinks into the kitchen, telling Tony to stay put for a little while. So Tony does, turning on the TV and settling down for an America’s Next Top Model marathon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> crossposted to tumblr and ff.net.  
> reviews/comments are very welcome!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went to see The Avengers for the 9th time today so I have a renewed love of everything. And we're nearly done!

Tony’s yelling at Tyra, asking her how she could dare keep girl-with-nose over girl-with-tattoo when it was the photographers fault for making her look that short, when Loki comes back, turning off the TV with a wave of his hand, before covering Tony’s eyes with his hands and instructing him to follow. Loki leads Tony into the dining room before uncovering his eyes.

And that was not what Tony was expecting at all. The lights are down, the room lit by candles that cover every surface, and there are plates full of food and glasses of wine situated on opposite sides of the table. Loki pulls out a chair for Tony, and he sits. Loki then goes around and takes his seat opposite him and smiles. Tony laughs. Because Loki has made a _goddamn candlelight dinner_ for them and dammit Tony feels like a woman now, but in a totally good, warm and fuzzy way.

Loki’s smile falls at the laughter, and he’s second guessing himself all of a sudden and _no_ that isn’t what Tony wanted. So he reaches across, grabs Loki’s hand and doesn’t let go, even when Loki tries to jerk it away.

‘Have you been taking dating advice from Steve?’

‘The Captain suggested that this might be a nice way for us to _get to know each other_.’

‘It’s totally cliché but it’s a wonderful idea.’ He replies, smiling and trying to get Loki to realise that he does like it, it makes him feel special (not that he will ever, in a million years, say that out loud). Tony counts it as a victory when the other man returns his smile.

And they do. Get to know each other that is. Tony tells Loki about everything from his childhood to his company, and Loki even tells the whole adopted-so-I-tried-to-end-the-world thing and Tony vows to get Loki to show him his blue skin at a later date. They drink plenty of wine and everything starts to get a little fuzzy and Tony takes Loki’s hand again and traces patterns on the inside of his wrist and a shiver runs up Loki’s spine and Tony looks at him again.

‘You’re beautiful, you know that?’ Tony says, and it’s true. The candlelight is playing havoc with Loki’s features, in a way reminiscent of how the arc reactor light behaved, and the light softens his features at the same time as sharpening his eyes and the reflection of the flame in his eyes is breath-taking and Tony finds his heart beating slightly faster.

‘So I have been told.’ Loki tries to play it off nonchalantly, but he ducks his head and Tony can see the faint blush creeping up his neck and suddenly this isn’t Tony the superhero and Loki the super villain but it’s Tony-and-Loki, normal people on a date and learning about each other and falling in love with each other all over again.

‘I love you.’ And that’s true too. Tony can’t deny it any longer. He has fallen in love with this impossibly powerful, impossibly ethereal man and he doesn’t care about the future or any of that and in that moment this is all he wants, to be Tony-and-Loki forever and damn the consequences.

Loki looks up again, blush spreading across his cheeks. ‘I believe that I love you too, Tony.’ And that just makes the breath catch in Tony’s throat because he called him Tony and that just emphasises the fact that Loki loves him back and nothing else fucking matters because _Loki loves him back_. And as they fall into bed together that night they both realise that this is not only the love that they defined for themselves, but it’s the love that you read about in fairy tales and Tony remembers reading stories of love overcoming enchantments and evil queens and being strong enough to withstand everything the world can throw at it and maybe this is what’s happening now. Tony-and-Loki are defeating their enchantments of both having hatred for themselves so incredibly ingrained into their psyche and they’re opening up to each other in every way possible and this is Tony coming home and belonging and this is everything Tony’s ever wanted ever since his parents died. This is their love and in that moment he knows that they will be strong enough to overcome his fears of the future.

\--------------------------

They’re teased, mercilessly, by the rest of the team, but them being honest does encourage Natasha and Clint to reveal the true nature of their relationship and soon the fascination moves onto them, leaving Tony and Loki free to exist in the mansion without being harassed from every direction.

However, word did slowly get around the super-secret underground society of villains that Loki wasn’t on their side anymore, and to start with, there were a whole lot more attacks, which made no sense at all, because once they’d all been _decimated_ by the newly magic-enhanced Avengers, they stopped again and everything went back to normal.

It took two months before Tony finally made good on his promise to see Loki in his natural form. Doom’s released like a million Doombots into the city and they’ve been improved since last time. They manage to hold their own for a while, but there’s no sign of the fight ending. And suddenly they’re fighting blind because Hawkeye’s down and everything’s going downhill and they’re not making an impact on anything and they’re starting to be just a little bit overwhelmed. Loki’s disappeared as well – he was trying, flashing around in bursts of green light and doing who knows what, but nothing even made a dent in those waves of robots.

The suit’s power is starting to decline and Tony can’t last much longer, when Loki reappears and now he’s blue and he’s fucking _glowing_ and he means that in a literal sense and then there’s this blinding flash and then the Doombots are gone. And so is Loki. Everyone is confused but not complaining as they head back to HQ (the Hulk carrying Hawkeye) and Fury takes one look at them, practically falling over from exhaustion and postpones the debriefing, sending them straight home/to the medical bay. Tony manages to crawl into bed and he falls asleep pretty much straight away.

Later on, he wakes up to incredibly aching, stiff joints and a very, very cold being attached to his side. Tony instinctively jerks away, and the sudden movement makes Loki stir. He sits up, bleary eyed and Tony calls for ‘lights, 40%’ and, once again, Tony’s breath is taken away by the sight of Loki. His skin is a deep, deep azure that is crossed by paler blue lines that make his skin look like where the ocean meets the sky. The lines zigzag across his face, his arms, his chest, overlapping in intricate patterns and he can’t help but reach out to trace the contours gently, feeling the extreme cold leaking into his skin and wondering if he could kiss Loki like this without getting frostbite. He lifts his gaze as he pushes the hair that looks even darker now behind Loki’s ear and meeting red eyes. Red eyes that remind him of a zombie movie he watched once, but this is different because these eyes are deep and dark and have a vulnerability in them that makes Tony realise that Loki is scared, scared of being seen like this, scared of being rejected. His eyes glitter in the low light and Tony presses a gentle kiss to the corner of cerulean lips and kind of enjoys the slight sting of the cold against his lips.

‘What happened?’ He asks looking into those ruby eyes.

‘I exhausted my power resources trying to defeat those metal men. This is the quickest way for me to recover. I apologise if I hurt you.’

‘You didn’t hurt me; I just wasn’t expecting to wake up to an icy smurf in my bed.’ Loki furrows his eyebrows at him, obviously not understanding, but Tony just smiles and kisses him again, deepening this kiss just to feel the burn of an icy tongue battling with his. He pulls away after the kiss crosses into painful. ‘Does that hurt you?’

‘As much as I hurt you, I imagine.’ He shrugs, wandering his hands underneath Tony’s shirt, chilling the skin there.

‘It’s totally unfair how you can be blue and frozen and still be so- so _pretty_.’

‘Did you just refer to me as _pretty_?’ Loki asks, smirking.

‘Yes I did and I’m not going to take it back.’ He says, kissing Loki again. Loki cocks his head to the side, raising an eyebrow but Tony glares at him, warning him to not push. It’s not his fault that Loki makes him act like this soppy romantic but Tony’s kind of happy like this and it’s not like anyone else needs to know how every brush of Loki’s fingers makes his heart pound and how his head feels light every time they kiss.

Tony has to pull his fingers away soon enough, because it’s really starting to hurt. ‘If you’re going to sleep here tonight, we’re going to need more blankets.’

\--------------------------

Loki hides from everybody else while he recuperates, because as he says the first morning – there’s a difference between showing Tony what he really looks like and showing the people that he still doesn’t know all that well. Nobody mentions it after Tony explains what happened to them, but they do thank Loki when he appears again.

It is bizarre how everything falls into place – how accepting everyone is, and Tony is still struggling to get over that. This is the guy that tried to kill them repeatedly and now he’s sitting at the breakfast bar happily chatting away with Natasha and Steve while he makes a fruit salad and it’s incredible how domestic and familial it is and it’s weird how things have changed. Not a bad weird though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thar be angst on the horizon. Just warning you.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i can't write a story without angst it is impossible okay.  
> also, after this i'm working on a highschool au that involves steve/tony and a musical set to the music of Smash. oops i think i'm out of control.

It takes Christmas to break Tony. It’s the week before and it’s snowing and everybody is sat around the fire, talking and drinking Clint’s ‘special’ lattes (that are around about 90% alcohol and everyone’s just a little more than tipsy) and watching the white flakes drift past the window. Tony is curled up in an overstuffed armchair with a lapful of practically _purring_ Loki, arguing about what the perfect Christmas movie is (Tony will not budge from Home Alone because he’s still a child at heart) with Steve. Natasha is leaning against the opposite edge of the sofa where Steve is sitting and Clint is perched on the arm, braiding her hair. Thor is sprawled across the rug, watching the flames and Bruce is sitting next to him, cross-legged, hogging the plate of cookies.

Everyone starts falling asleep, and when Loki nods off too, he tries to pick him up and carry him upstairs, but he’s all elbows and awkward joints, and he nearly kind of drops Loki at the top of the stairs and it takes him too long to realise that the god isn’t in his arms anymore and Loki grabs his ankle, bringing him crashing to the floor and waking everyone else up in the process. They laugh like little kids and ignore the glares they get from the sleepy people that march past.

They don’t move from their spot on the floor for a while, talking about past Christmases and it’s when Loki says that next year he’ll take Tony to Asgard for Christmas because he’s actually semi-accepted there now and Tony freezes. _Next year_. Next year implies the future and the future implies commitment and yeah Tony had thought that he was fine with that but still and there’s this tight sensation in his chest and he can’t really breathe and Loki’s looking at him funny but Tony can’t focus on that so he pushes Loki away, tells him _‘I can’t do this.’_ And he flees. He flees all the way to his workshop where he locks the room down and collapses behind his bar with a bottle of whatever he can grab first and he still can’t breathe.

He also cannot think about why he freaked out like that and he sort of feels bad about leaving Loki but it’s in his nature to freak out about the future and it had never been set out so plainly and obviously and Tony felt torn. They’d never talked about the future and Tony had figured that they were just taking this day by day and he hadn’t thought about what would happen next and he liked it that way. But now, there it was. This was Loki revealing that he has thought about the future and he has plans and that’s far too much commitment for Tony and he feels more than a little trapped. His heart feels all constricted and he’s scared but he still loves Loki, or at least he thinks he does but he doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want the pressure and he doesn’t feel like he knows anything anymore and he’s in unchartered waters and this was bound to happen sooner or later and his head hurts and his whole being aches.

He sits there all night, drinking and thinking about whether this is what he wants and whether he wants to spend his whole life with Loki and that’s ridiculous because Loki was just talking about next Christmas and that’s only a year away but a year leads to two and that leads to forever and that begs the question about how he is going to grow old and die and Loki isn’t going to change because he’s a fucking _immortal god_ and that in itself means this isn’t going to last for forever and what’s the point in love if it never lasts?

Eventually he drinks enough to start forgetting and for his mind to feel fuzzy and then he falls asleep clutching the bottle like it’s going to hold him back and ignoring the wet tracks down his cheeks.

\-----------------------------------------

He doesn’t really move until Pepper overrides the lockdown and drags him to the shower and locks him in the bathroom, refusing to release him until he stops smelling like a sewer. She demands answers out of him but he doesn’t reply, and she tells him how Loki hasn’t left his room since Tony ran off and that just makes Tony’s heart hurt even more. Because it’s one thing for him to freak out but he still does care about Loki and this is just typical Tony because he’s now hurting the one person he never wanted to in the face of his own fear and insecurity. Pepper smiles sadly at him when he tells her that he never wanted this to happen, and she just hugs him, but she doesn’t say anything. Because what can she say? After all is said and done, she’s still his ex, and it still hurts for her to see that he lasted in a relationship with a super villain longer than he did with her, but Pepper isn’t the type to hold a grudge. She still loves Tony, but she still can’t help him. This is the same reason that her and Tony fell apart and she didn’t know how to handle it then and she shouldn’t have to handle it now. But Tony still needs her.

He needs her in a purely platonic way because he does still love her, and she looks after him but she’d always deserved better. And he knows that Loki does as well. He deserves someone who doesn’t freak out like this at the tiniest thing. But Loki chose him, before the feelings were involved, he chose Tony out of everybody on the planet and that says something to Tony. It says that this whole thing wasn’t just because he was a little horny. There was a reason Loki chose Tony and Tony doesn’t care what that reason was. And that surprises him but it’s probably because it led to this whole thing happening and Tony is grateful for that.

Tony loves Loki. That is an undisputable fact. And his mind is just going in circles now, but that is the one thing he keeps coming back to. He should be able to swallow down his pride and his fear and he should be able to admit this to Loki – admit that he is scared. Let the god reassure him. Because Tony knows that he will, that they’re close enough to breaking each other’s facades and this might be just what they need. Overcoming this would make them stronger and all Tony knows is that he wants Loki.

He knows that he can’t avoid this forever and he needs to try and talk to Loki but Loki is avoiding Tony just as much and admittedly, Tony isn’t trying hard. He gets dirty looks from Thor and Natasha and concerned looks from Steve and Clint and Bruce is nowhere to be found and he doesn’t know how they know what happened but he blames Jarvis because he has yet to say no to Pepper and he probably just showed them the video feed and he can’t trust _anything_ anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> crossposted to ff.net and tumblr.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and this is the last chapter!

It’s Christmas Eve when they finally see each other again. Tony has snuck out of his workshop (because he hasn’t had access to his room since Loki had locked himself in) to steal the leftovers and Loki’s intent on doing the same thing. They’re standing in opposite doorways of the kitchen when they notice each other and Tony freezes with his hand on the doorframe and Loki has stopped with his hand on the light switch (because the others refused to live in a house where you have to ask the house to turn on the lights) and they’re just staring at each other.

‘Lo-‘

‘No.’ Loki turns to leave and Tony can feel that he’s losing already.

‘Please.’ Loki pauses, whether it’s at the desperation in his voice or just what he said, but it’s enough to get him to turn back. He sits at the breakfast bar, and Tony joins him, sitting on the other side. Tony can’t respond to the heat and the anger in that gaze so he stares at the marble countertop, following the patterns with his fingertips.

‘Are you going to explain what happened? Please, I am dying to know.’ And Tony flinches away from the venom in that voice and he’s reminded of that time in the cave before this got serious and he wants to hold Loki and tell him that he’s sorry but he knows this isn’t going to be that easy.

But it’s still a pretty good place to start. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Is that all? An apology? I was-‘

‘No. Stop. Just-‘ Tony sighs and he’s not going to cry but his throat is constricting and he knows this is his last chance but his normally so witty and talkative tongue is frozen and he can’t think of what to say. ‘I am sorry. I freaked out because that’s what I do. I don’t hang around people enough to get attached and on the off chance I do, I know it won’t last and I thought that I’d been pretty good with not having a breakdown over us but then you mentioned next year and I know it seems stupid but it really hit home how serious this-‘

He’s cut short when Loki takes his hand and traces patterns across the back of his hand. ‘That is all you are afraid of? The future?’ And his voice is quiet, soft, and Tony isn’t as nervous as he was anymore.

‘That and the fact that you’re immortal. You’re going to be the same forever and I’m just going to get old and die.’

‘Are you worried that I will tire of you?’ Tony looks up at that, surprised that Loki would work out what he was afraid of. He nods slightly, almost afraid to say it out loud. ‘I cannot promise you the future and I cannot promise you the world, but I can say that for now, it is you I love, and that does not look as if it will change any time soon. Why should you fear the future when you cannot possibly know what will happen?’

‘Did you just tell me to enjoy myself while I can? Because that’s normally my line.’ Loki laughs quietly, grasping Tony’s hand.

‘Perhaps you should take your own advice.’

‘Perhaps I should.’ Tony smiles, looking up and Loki and maybe he just needed to hear that Loki does love him and maybe he is the insecure partner and he doesn’t care because Loki hasn’t complained yet. Just as long as he doesn’t run off again. Tony squeezes Loki’s hand. ‘I am sorry, though.’

‘I know.’

‘It’s just- I love you. And I’m scared. And-‘

‘Tony, stop.’ Loki cuts him off and squeezes his hand. ‘Do you remember our conversation in your tower?’ He carries on when Tony nods. ‘That was the first time we had met properly, without your suit being in the way. And you made me hesitate. Normally, I would have killed you and been done with it. But you made me want to stay, to talk. You were witty and clever and when the tapping did not work, I- I panicked.’

‘And throwing me out of the window seemed like the best idea?’

‘I saw you as a threat. If I could not have you on my side, they would not be able to have you on theirs.’ Loki pauses, considering his next words carefully. ‘I was convinced I would either win the battle, or I would be captured, taken to Asgard and killed. There was no middle ground for me.’

‘And when neither happened?’ Tony pushed when Loki didn’t continue.

‘I was stranded. All I could do was be a nuisance – I had lost the boost to my power that the Chitauri had given me, and I could not risk trying anything again for fear of angering Asgard. Every time I saw you in battle, my resolve to fight weakened.’

‘You were falling for me as we fought?’ Tony teases, testing the water, smiling when Loki laughed.

‘You could say that, yes.’ Loki starts tracing light patterns across Tony’s wrists. ‘That night, I was angry. Angry that you had such power over me, and that you did not realise you did. I went to your room with every intention of ending you. But, before I realised what I was doing, I had you pinned against a door and I was kissing you, rather than killing you.’

‘If it helps, you did technically end me that night. You made me yours.’

Loki shakes his head but he’s smiling and blushing slightly. ‘After the first time, I found that I could not stop. I- I became addicted to you and I found that I did not want to fight it. I did not want to fight you.’

‘Why are you telling me all of this?’

‘So you are aware of why this happened. It was you, always you. I do not plan for the future, I do not plan for a change in circumstances. I plan for you, with you. If next year is too far for you, then we do not have to think about it.’

Tony can’t describe the relief he feels at that. It feels like the world has been taken off of his shoulders and he doesn’t care that it kind of makes him feel pathetic that Loki has to explain that to him, but he buries that along with his fear.

Tony stands and walks over to stand in front of Loki, who spins on his stool, opening his legs to allow Tony to step between them and duck his head to claim Loki’s lips. It starts as a chaste apology and confirmation that he’s okay again but it quickly becomes more heated and Loki’s hoisting Tony up onto the bar and the height difference works just perfectly for them to be able keep kissing in this position and Loki’s hand are pushing Tony’s t-shirt up and they separate long enough for it to be pulled over Tony’s head and thrown into a corner of the room.

Loki’s lips move downwards, peppering his neck and chest with kisses and ‘ _iloveyou_ ’s and it works because Tony feels wanted and feels his fears melting away and Loki’s hands are expertly undoing Tony’s pants and Tony doesn’t want to linger on what just happened – he wants to move past it. So he pulls Loki’s shirt up and over his head and he needs this too much right now to take his time undressing Loki and he stops caring when Loki dances his fingers up Tony’s cock, aching and hard and he can’t help but make a desperate keening noise and buck his hips up, needing more friction. But Loki is loath to give it to him and just keeps going with the feather light touches and Tony’s just about to go insane when Loki murmurs something and suddenly his finger is pushing into Tony and he’s spreading his legs wider apart, body begging for more. And Loki is still going slowly, so slowly, and Tony is falling apart under his hands.

The second and third fingers come in quick succession and Tony knows that Loki can’t keep this up – he needs this as much as Tony. And it’s uncomfortable – there’s a reason that Loki bottoms more often than not – but Tony doesn’t care and just as his body is getting used to it Loki pulls his fingers out and Tony is whining long and high pitched and Loki is pulling him forward, off of the counter and straight onto his magically lubed cock and the stretch is bordering on painful but Loki doesn’t move, hands the control over to Tony and Tony pauses, letting his body get used to it. He rolls his hips experimentally and _yeah_ he’s ready. He rests his hands on Loki’s shoulders and uses the leverage to push himself up and force himself back down and it’s awkward but it’s also intimate and gentle and _loving_ and it’s exactly what they both need. The kiss lazily, Tony rolling his hips and Loki twists just so and jesus it feels so good and a litany of _fucklokijesusfuckloki_ is spilling from his lips.

But Loki, ever the impatient soul, gets bored of the slow pace and, planting his hands underneath Tony, he lifts him up, lying him on the bar and raising Tony’s leg onto his shoulder so he can go deeper and he moves fast, so fast, and it’s brutal and the marble is painful against his back and he throws a hand above his head, holding fast to the edge and trying to alleviate the chafing and Loki just keeps going, pumping his hips viciously. The heat is building inside Tony and he’s digging his heels into the small of Loki’s back, toes curling as it builds and his back is arching and then he’s coming, untouched, over his stomach and Loki isn’t stopping, ploughing into his own orgasm and then he’s collapsing on top of Tony, briefly kissing him before standing up and pulling out and dragging Tony down onto the floor with him, where they curl up together.

‘I love you.’ Loki is the first to say it this time, and Tony nuzzles his cheek before whispering that he loves him too and they fall asleep, curled together, naked on the kitchen floor.

\-----------------------------------------

They’re woken up the next day by a loud girlish scream that comes from Clint and Natasha muttering ‘That’s one hell of a Christmas surprise.’

Loki teleports them into Tony’s bed, but there’s no way that Tony’s going back to sleep because it’s Christmas and it’s his first Christmas with his new ‘family’ and Christmas means presents and he wants presents despite the fact that he’s kind of the man who has everything and he wants to give the others their presents and see the looks on their faces and he wants to eat a hell of a lot of food with them and he wants to sit around and watch movies and play games and talk about everything and nothing. He wants the Christmases he never had, and as he lies here and stares at the ceiling, curled into Loki’s chest and trying to ignore the ache in his neck from sleeping against a counter and the ache in his lower back and the raw feeling of the rest of his back he can finally have that.

He feels like he can finally have the Christmas he wants because he has the team and they’re dysfunctional, yeah, and they’ve known each other for less than a year but they belong together in one flawed family. And he has Loki wrapped around his side and his heart and it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere soon and that’s a miracle in and of itself because someone finally taught Tony Stark how to love and to not be afraid of the future and everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

He bounds out of his room (pausing briefly to get dressed) and into the lounge where the tree is and he apologises for having sex in the kitchen and promises to clean it up later and he laughs at the excitement in Steve’s eyes and the way Thor’s bouncing up and down. Loki appears behind him, wrapping his arms around his waist and kissing his cheek before resting his chin on Tony’s shoulder and he feels weirdly like the parent of this eclectic family. And Tony’s not an idiot. He knows that the world can’t be this perfect and this picturesque forever and something will inevitably go wrong, but he isn’t afraid anymore. Because he knows they can handle anything that the world throws at them, all of them together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> crossposted to ff.net and tumblr.  
> and that's it, we're done! thank you so much to everyone who read, especially those who commented and kudos-ed and bookmarked, you are all awesome!

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty much all written, but I'm in serious editing mode, but I should be updating pretty quickly. I'm open to reviews and comments!  
> crossposted to tumblr and ff.net.


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